The Effect of Music Therapy on the Quality of Life of Patients With Gastric Cancer Referred to a Selected Hospital Affiliated to Ardabil University of Medical Sciences, Ardabil City, Iran, in 2020

Abstract

Objective: Today, music therapy is used to promote the quality of life of patients with chronic diseases such as cancer. This study aimed to investigate the effect of music therapy on patients’ quality of life with gastric cancer referred to a selected hospital affiliated with Ardabil University of Medical Sciences, Ardabil City, Iran, in 2019. Methods: This study is an experimental study performed on 74 patients with gastric cancer at Imam Khomeini Hospital in Ardabil City. The patients provided their informed written consent before the study. The samples were randomly divided into two groups of control and music therapy. The music therapy was held for one month, five days a week, 30 minutes each day. The study data were collected through two questionnaires of demographic information and quality of life (36-SF) and analyzed in SPSS version 22. Results: The Mean±SD ages of the study patients were 53.38±14.00 years in the control group and 53.86± 11.95 years in the intervention group. There was a significant difference between the mean scores of quality of life of the samples in the music therapy group before (35.41±17.66) and after the intervention (53.51±14.35) (P˂0.001). Physical dimensions with mean and standard deviation of 53.78±14.41 (P= 0.001), psychological (44.88±17.31) (P=0.001) and social (48.04±17.96) (P=0.003) group. The intervention was significantly increased compared to the control group in the 36-SF questionnaire. Conclusion: According to the results of the study, music therapy as a non-pharmacological method, along with other treatment methods, can affect the quality of life of patients. Therefore, it is suggested that health centers use this method to improve the quality of life of cancer patients.